The 26 year old English-Hungarian filmmaker developed an early interest in photography. Moving on to cinematography and film directing he started out making short films. One of his first, ’Lost to Sight', won first prize at an independent film festival and was presented at the Hungarian Filmweek, the most prestigious film festival in the country. He then went on to study cinematography and film directing at college.

Since then, he has made a number of documentaries and fiction films. ‘One Step Beyond’ (2005) and 'Immersed’ (2007) both won best cinematography awards at various film festivals.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he became a bellringer at the age of 10. His enthusiasm for film making and bellringing was finally combined, and after two years of planning and fund raising, filming took place from July to October 2006.

Balázs Alpár was born in 1982 in Budapest, Hungary. He began his musical studies at the age of six, and is currently enrolled at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music as a student of composition. This year he has been studying at the Media Composition Department of the University of Music in Vienna.

He composes music for various musical formations, experimenting with different genres.

Since 2000 he has been the composer and leader of the Fugato Orchestra, a 15-member chamber orchestra.

(www.fugato.org)

Fugato’s first album was published in October 2004 and received outstanding international reviews. It won the Audience Award of the Budapest Spring Festival in 2006.